BBC Micro Bit Final Design Revealed; to Power One Million Kids

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BBC has come up with the final and full-fledged design of its pocket-sized computer, which would be heading out to about one million kids this October.

Named Micro Bit, the device is made to encourage kids with the learning of coding, as well as come up with their own coding pieces for being programmed into multiple uses.

The design looks fairly reshuffled from the prototype which they unveiled during March. They have also removed the small sized silicon batteries with AA batteries, considering that the device would be handled by kids.

Micro Bit makes use of the ARM powered 32-bit Cortex M0 CPU for computing powers. Connection can be established between smartphones, tablets, PCs by means of micro USBs and Bluetooth, or can even be plugged in to devices like Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Galileo using the I/O rings.

A set or LEDs are lined at the heart of the device, and can be programmed to indicate various patterns including characters and numbers. Micro Bit also features built-in motion sensors that were not part of the initial prototype revealed.

The developers claim that coding tweaks in the device can bring about multiple utilities of the Micro Bit like in gamepads, metal detectors, DVD player controls and much more.

BBC previously introduced a similar initiative with their Micro device during the 80s, which kick started the British programming culture.

Introduced as a device to help people learn programming skills, Micro is widely considered as the greatest contributor to British gaming industry in its early days.

BBC will start rolling out the new device to over one million UK-based students to get them closer with the basics of coding.

BBC Learning head Sinead Rocks says that the new device would be helping the younger ones to express digitally.

Companies like Samsung, ARM and Microsoft have also joined hands with the venture among several others. Plans are also to put these tiny computers to sale, after having its specifications open sourced.